Solace - ii
by aetherlumos
Summary: The forest has changed but he is still the same. (updated version)


They were eating breakfast, he thinks. Eating breakfast when Hermione reached over and gently twined her fingers with his, and for a moment, he thought nothing of it. She filled the quaint silence with musings of yesterday's work at the Ministry and her visit at the Weasleys - how much they had missed him. His lips thinned in a firm line as he stabbed his eggs with the sharp tines of his forks, snatching his hand away from hers. She left him to make a mess of his plate, watching as the muscle in his jaw jumped until he finally stopped and the twitch in his hand calmed. She promptly rested her hand over his once more, dull and heavy like the tether of an anchor and her eyes shone with regret, an apology dying on her lips, and all too soon their bodies whirled above the table, folding and twisting into impossible patterns as the sharp crack of Apparition marked their departure.

He knows now that the tug in his navel and the pulling of stretched limbs had nothing to do with the sinking pit in his stomach.

They were only eating breakfast.

* * *

He lets go of her hand as soon as their feet collide against the ground, but he immediately regrets it. His chest feels tight and his throat is closing up, like he can't breathe — he gasps for air desperately and collapses to the leaf-covered earth. All he feels is pain and this place only magnifies it, emphasizes every ache and scar that makes him want to scratch his skin away to be somebody else completely. His breath hitches, their destination almost like a stab of betrayal. He shakes his head into his trembling hands, trying to understand why she's brought him here but the panic in his mind won't allow him to think properly.

"Wh—why?" he chokes out in an attempt to speak.

Immediately, Hermione rushes to his crumpled form and rests on her knees to calm him down. She didn't expect his reaction to be like this and she can only hope Harry will forgive her in the end. "Harry, it's alright. You're okay. We're only in the forest. Nothing is going to happen," she says rapidly, gently grabbing his arm to anchor him down. "Please, calm down." She holds his gaze firmly, but she can tell her words are going straight through him, sloshing against his ears like sludge.

"I can't—can't," he wheezes, scratching at his collar to peel the fabric away. His nails dig into his skin, red angry trails in their wake as he jerks away from her grasp.

"Can't breathe," he cries, scrambling back so she can't touch him anymore. She stares at him with wide eyes, watching him cower away from her is an odd sight. She still has trouble understanding this is what the war has cost him and the idea of what happened to him is so vague and obscure, she tries to forget it even happened at all. She had always been gathered under the protection of his strength, but now, as she stares at Harry, trembling hands running up and down the length of his thighs, mouthing some hushed mantra, she realizes he is broken and she doesn't know how to fix him.

"Harry, please—please, stop it," she says desperately. She crouches down to his level and grabs his hands, holding them in her own, but he recoils from her touch. She whimpers but raises her hands away from him to show she is not a threat, undeterred. "It's me, Hermione. It's only me. Look at me. Just look at me, not at anything else." She holds his gaze firmly.

It's been five months since they found him and Hermione isn't sure if she is lucky that this is the first time she has seen Harry like this. He almost always knows when it is coming on, when something has triggered such a reaction, and Ron, looking as if the world has stopped, carries his prone form into his room, hidden behind closed doors.

But here, they are alone with nowhere for Harry to hide and she doesn't know what to do. She tries to observe him clinically, but it is hard when she can see the tremor in his shoulders and his face wet with tears.

"Now focus and take a deep breath," she tells him.

He nods tightly in obedience and recognition, his eyes wide and fearful. His brow scrunches up in concentration as he tries to keep a constant focus on Hermione, just her, instead of the sweet hum of the forest that vibrates, the naked trees and rusted leaves that remind him of something he wants to keep buried and forgotten. His breath rattles in his chest, ragged and mangled through his nose, but he tries again, matching his breathing with Hermione's. He can still feel the panic, creeping up like a disease and he feels something seeping along his hands. When he looks down, there is blood smeared on his palms, sticky and congealing. He scrubs them on the ground, trenching up worn dirt but the crimson stain won't wipe off.

"Oh…Oh, God!" he stammers, desperately trying to clean his hands of something that isn't there, and Hermione watches in absolute fear as Harry starts to claw at his arms as if to peel back healed wounds. "It's everywhere, it's everywhere!" His head jerks in a wiry motion; he hears leaves crunching under the heavy weight of boots, the distant sound of harsh Latin and the rush of spells whizzing past his ears.

"They're coming. He's going to find me," he whispers, horrified.

"Nobody is coming, Harry. We're safe here," Hermione says, speaking sharply to hold his attention.

But he stills suddenly, spine stiff and rigid for a moment, then crawls frantically away from Hermione and she feels bereft of his presence. He dimly spots a tree and latches onto the hearty roots for some sort of stability in a wasteland that offers no comfort. He grips the bark with a surprising strength until the rough pads of his fingers go white and Hermione cannot help but think he's bound to get a splinter with the force of his hand, and the thought is so mundane and so terribly _inappropriate_ that she wonders where it came from in the first place. It might have to do with the retched pulse in her chest, thumping sporadically with fear, but she can't move, as if her legs are sown to the ground like the roots of every mangled plant in the forest. She tries calling for him, but he jerkily shakes his head and all too quickly, his eyes widen like little globes and his back hunches in like a werewolf during its transformation and promptly retches by the trunk of the tree. And then he's coughing, sputtering for air as he heaves again into the soiled mix of earth and vomit and everything feels too tight, as if his insides have coiled tightly like the springs of his dingy mattress in Privet Drive.

Hermione is finally lifted from her spot on the floor, alarms buzzing in her mind and with a panicked edge, pulls her wand out from her front pocket and kneels beside Harry. Her hand wavers above his back tentatively, daring to soothe him, but when she hears a quiet whimper from him and his shoulders flinch, her hand presses against his back in smooth circles with the wild hope that she could drive the pain away. Her nose wrinkles when the sick, warm odor of vomit hits her, but she stays by him. Anything else is unthinkable. It's only when he finally rolls away from the mess that she too moves, but for all that he has heaved and expelled from the inside, he still feels a blackness filling him up.

Hermione waves her wand deftly and thankfully, the vomit disappears, and it's almost like she can pretend that it never occurred at all - that they only came for a light stroll to enjoy the spring breeze, but she can't afford to lie to herself anymore. Harry wipes his mouth with the cuff of his sleeve and slowly sits up, eyes searching crazily for any threat or figures lurking in the shadows. When he looks down, his hands are pale and covered in dirt, but there is no sign of blood. The sound of their silence is palpable and sickening, and Hermione wishes either of them would have the courage to speak.

"Why am I here?" he finally asks through clenched teeth. Hermione flinches at the edge in his tone, angry yet still shaking with terror. But she fancies herself lucky, in a way. It's a wonder he's still talking to her.

"I thought it would help by bringing you here. I thought—if you knew there was nothing that could hurt you anymore, you could have moved on better. I just can't bear to see you so…scared," she says.

Harry shakes his head fervently. "Just please, take me back home, alright? Please, Hermione, we have to go back, okay? I can't—I can't do this," he begs. Hermione can see his hands shaking and just barely recognize the faint tremor in his shoulder.

"I can't take you back, Harry, not until you realize that you're safe. This has gone on far enough. You can't just lock yourself away. Everyone's worried about you as well," she says, and Harry seems slightly mollified at this, shoulders drooping. She knows how much he hates being worried about, being thought of as a burden. She knows she's manipulating him, but she can't focus on that just yet. "Look, I don't know what happened, but—"

"That's right, you don't know!" he interrupts, and everything Hermione had worked up towards collapses. He's close to screaming, cheeks flaming red with anger. "You don't know anything! You're so used to having all the answers and now it's killing you, isn't it? But you know what, Hermione? I'm not one of your ruddy textbooks that you can just flip through or a stupid Arithmancy assignment to figure out. You don't know what they did! You don't know!" he shrieks, and for a moment, he wants to shed his clothing to show her, make her understand that this is not child's play or detective work. This is his life now, bottled secrets and bleak scars that cannot be erased.

"Show me," she says softly, partly because she doesn't think she can handle hearing Harry's broken voice any longer. "Show me where they found you."

"W—what?" He looks at her stunned. "Are you bloody mad?"

"Show me," she repeats forcefully. "I need to know."

"You don't deserve to know anything! You don't have the right!" He screams, hands clenched into fists by his sides.

Hermione flinches. She has never seen Harry this furious before, but she knows behind his fire there is a trembling fear, she just has to exploit it. She feels a pit in her stomach as she thinks of what she might have to do.

"I don't deserve to know, or you just don't want to tell me? Maybe if you weren't so unbelievably ignorant, you'd realize you weren't the only one who fought a war or the only one who's been hurt!" she screams, and his eyes flicker to her arm, covered expertly with a long sleeve. "But I can take you back to Grimmauld Place and let you wallow in your room with Kreacher if that's really what you want. Prove it to  
everyone just how pathetic you've become."

As soon as the words leave her mouth, she feels sick and there is an awful taste in her mouth. Harry looks devastated and she wants to cry.  
"You—you think I—that I like being there? You think I want to sit in that damn house all day because I can't manage to get up and leave my bedroom? You think I want Ron to have to drag me away so no one has to see me like this? That I want to feel so—so…"

"So what, Harry?"

"Ashamed!" he screams. His chin starts to quiver and he looks down. "I'm so ashamed of myself, so angry with myself that I could have let this happened. I—I feel like such a stupid little _freak_! I'm a fucking freak! A _stupid, idiot freak!" _His breathing comes out raggedly, as if there is no more air in his lungs, as if he has been fighting for a thousand years.

Hermione stands still. Everything is much worse than she had thought, something perverse and so unimaginably _wrong. _She wants to deny him, tell him what he believes is all a lie, but her tongue rests heavy in her mouth and the bitter sting behind her eyes is alight with fire. "Show me, Harry. Show me, and I promise I'll let you go back," she whispers.

He stares past her shoulder, focusing on a single point of weedy grass, an earthly participant no more. Fractured and splintered from reality and being, he nods with resignation and blank eyes, no longer the spirit of everything wild and harmed. He looks around to assess where they are, bristling leaves and fledgling flowers that blur together, and begins to walk.

After a moment's hesitation, Hermione follows.

* * *

They spend an hour walking in a seemingly endless path. Hermione is careful to keep her distance and trails behind Harry. His back is tense and she can sense his frustration every time he curses under his breath. He wipes his damp forehead with clammy hands and tugs at his hair to force it out of his eyes, but it's more to keep his hands occupied than anything else.

Hermione tries to stay useful by marking every few trees with a splat of paint and slashing the fallen branches and vines with her wand. She stays alert, tracking the ground for any animal or ditch but suddenly she's pressed against Harry's back and stumbles in her steps.

"Harry?"

Before them, there is a clear lake. The air is warmer and the buzz of insects fills the quiet. The pebbles under Hermione's feet crunch as she sinks into the gravel, but she climbs back up, digging her heels in the ground to keep her feet planted. She stands next to Harry and glances at him with concern. She holds her breath as she anticipates for his reaction to be something volatile and frightening, but he only stares ahead at the lake with wild eyes.

"Th—this is it. It used to be frozen, during winter…" His voice comes out like a croak, strangled and stifled. He can feel the panic clutch him, trickling into his heart because the still water reminds of something horrid, something he had repressed long ago.

The tranquility terrifies him, and he can feel himself shaking. He feels his insides swell and there is a salty fluid in his mouth, and he knows he is going to be sick again. Distantly, he wonders how the sight of something can cause such a reaction, if he's always been this influenceable, malleable. In all his years of taking orders, of fighting a war he obliged, succumbing as a warrior of bloodshed because of one man's word, because of the loss of too many, the idea is not so impossible anymore. It's all come down to this, every slight and abuse finally crashing down his shoulders at a force he wish he could control, his knees buckle and he slumps to the ground, grazing his knees. In a fresh surge of fury, he punches his hand into the rocks and the sound of the harsh contact of bone against earth is drowned by his piercing cries.

He hits harder and harder, to feel the throbbing pain in his hand grow deeper, so it will be all he can lay his attention on. Hermione is tugging at his shoulder to pull him up, screaming for him to stop but he doesn't acknowledge her. On the third time, there is a sickening crunch and he has to stifle a wail. He brings his hand into his lap, two fingers curled into his palm and notices the rocks are smeared with his blood. It leaks into the water and spirals almost elegantly. Harry pulls himself away from the lake and his shoe kicks into the water, creating an ebb of ripples. He shuts his eyes tightly; he doesn't want to see himself in the reflection of the lake, scarred and hideous, he wants to fade away.

Before Harry can do anything else, Hermione grabs both his wrists and presses them against his chest in a strong grip. Harry struggles in her grasp and howls when his injured hand crushes into his body.

"Let me go! Let go! Get off of me!" he bawls.

"I don't think I can do that, Harry," she says, her voice watery.

Harry only twists frantically, desperate to be out of her reach and roars, his voice like shattered glass and acute with pain. "Let me go! Leave me alone! I hate you, I hate you! Get away from me!" A sob fills the air and slowly, his thrashing ceases as he slumps into her shoulder.

Hermione can only assume it's out of exhaustion than anything else and feels her own hot tears sliding down her cheeks and into Harry's hair. She wraps her arms around him firmly and feels his whole frame shudder against her.

"I hate you," he cries into her chest.

She never thought those words could hurt so much.

"I know."


End file.
